As most of you know I’ve been looking for work, so I have taken a lot of drug tests. I counted 23 slips in my little pile so far this year.
I worked a lot of temp jobs.
Anyway I took a drug test (urinalysis) this morning. Very crowded it took about 2 hours of waiting.
So she calls my name, I hand her my slip she just waives me through, another guy has me print my name and sign. Then he gives me the cup says “Try to fill to the line” and points.
I was wating for him to ask me to take off my coat, turn my pockets inside out, something? But nothing. They also never checked my ID. I could’ve been anyone.
I have an asthma inhaler that clearly can be seen in my front left pocket. Well you don’t know it’s an inhaler but it shows that there’s something in the pocket that could be anything.
I’ve take a ton of drug tests and at minimum I always had to prove who I was. The hair tests obviously don’t need to have your remove clothes or jackets.
Anyone else take a drug test like this, with no controls. I mean I could’ve been anyone or concealed anything.
I don’t know if they asked other to do this, because they call you in and take you to the back to print your name on the form the store gave me. I assumed that is when they would’ve checked my ID.
I am surprised at the way people hire now-a-days. I’ve had three people call my references BEFORE the first interview. Seems like a big waste of time for me. But I guess there is a method to it.
I was just wondering if not giving ID or having to show you were carrying something was something others have gone through. 'Cause they’ve been standard for every other drug test I’ve taken
Shoot, I had a drug test performed at my doctor’s office and they let me bring my daughter into the private, lockable bathroom with me! Not only that, but she had to urinate, so I let her use the toilet before I used the cup. I wasn’t even thinking about cheating, but afterwards, I realized just how easy it would have been.
What was up? They just didn’t care if the result was accurate or not. They were more interested in charging you (or your potential employer) for the slip of paper with the results on it.
(In my case, I don’t think they didn’t so much not care as not think about it; it was a regular doctor’s office, not a drug screening place who thinks about (or should think about) security all day long. I think they were just as clueless and careless as I was.)
Oh, he didn’t, I asked him, 'cause I needed a drug test for nursing school. Going through him, my insurance paid for it, whereas a walk in lab would have been out of pocket. It was a 7 or 9 screen urine panel for street drugs, IIRC. Whatever the school required at the time.
The one & only time I had to take a urinalysis drug test (overseas trip with a youth group) my doctor to go into the bathroom with me and watch me pee. He wasn’t thrilled that he had to witness it himself, but I refused let one of his nurses be the witness.
The office was just being sloppy. They’re supposed to check an ID. They can probably get away with not checking it every now and then, but if they make a habit of it before long people will figure it out and start sending people to take their tests for them.
(I’m a medical review officer for this sort of thing in the region that gave Hillbilly Heroin its name. The one thing that consistently surprises me is the way druggies share information with one another–they’re like the freakin’ Borg.)
My weird (long) drug test story: GF at the time is visiting me for a long weekend (2 hours from her home) and gets the call from Company X that she got the job. She has to take a drug test in the next 72 hours. She says she’s out of town, they say no worries, there’s a big list on their website of places she can go scattered throughout the state. She finds one nearby, calls and makes an appointment for the next morning.
We wake up and drive to the testing location. We’re confused when the address is for a house in a residential part of town, not a lab as we had expected. We knock on the door, no one home. We walk around to a side door, still no one. She calls the number she used to make the appointment, the woman who answers is confused but tells us to stay put, that the testing is done at the house and that the person in charge will be there shortly. We can walk around back and wait on the patio. It’s complete with many chairs, a fire pit, lots of plants, windchimes, cool colored glass mosaics, statues of insects, garden gnomes, etc.
The woman eventually shows up, gives us an apology and b.s. excuse but it’s obvious she just forgot she had an appointment and left to run errands or something. The woman is very laid-back, long uncombed curly hair, and a bit hippyish. She leads us inside her house, where she apparently just takes the samples, fills out some paperwork and FedExes them to a lab somewhere for analysis. She points my GF to the restroom, gives her a cup and the instructions (pee in the cup, don’t flush the toilet (?) etc.). At this point my GF is wearing a baggy hoodie, she could have had a freaking Nalgene of clean piss in the pocket and it would have gone unnoticed.
While she was doing her thing I bum around her kitchen/living room, passing time. I notice numerous Phish magnets on her fridge, pictures of her and some dreaded-out friends at festivals, the background on her laptop is a concert photo of DMB that she obviously took, and there’s just lots of colorful stained and blown glass paperweights, window hangings, and other knickknacks. I think about the trippy garden patio she has set up out back. It’s OBVIOUS this chick gets high. I know, just 'cause she likes to jam and seems “artsy” doesn’t mean she smokes… but seriously, by a preponderance of the evidence and my own life experience, there’s no way she could pass the test she’s administering.
My girlfriend comes out, signs something, we leave. She has the exact same reaction: “Did you notice all the jamband stuff she had in her kitchen? And that funky garden out back? She didn’t even check my pocket or ask me to take off my sweatshirt.” We agreed that she probably did it as a sort of subversive Fuck You to the man. All I know is if I ever get to choose where I take a drug test, I’m going to her…
[soapbox]I loathe drug tests. They’re completely invasive and they treat people as guilty of being a junkie until proven innocent. All they find are pot smokers and junkies that are high so much you can tell just by looking at them. It doesn’t check for alcoholism which is more common, but legal.[/soapbox]
Some places are super paranoid about doing drug tests thinking they’re weeding out The Evil, and some are just going through the motions because it’s company policy but they really don’t give a shit. You went to one that was the latter. The most invasive one I had was where after showing ID, I had to take off all outer-wear. I’d had my 2 year old with me and he had to wait just outside the door. All of the tests I’ve taken have a temp gauge on the cup.
That is really interesting, in April I worked for a temp agency and they sent us to a factory. The agency said, we had 30 days in which we had to take the drug test otherwise we’d be dropped from the factory list. I guess they were giving you some time to clean out your system.
Anyway the first day, we all gathered in an area, while waiting to be assigned to a machine and the subject of drug tests came up. I said “I took mine already.” I took it the day I left the temp agency.
Everyone rushes over and starts questioning me on the exact method they used. Did they watch you? Were you allowed to take anything in? Etc etc
I guess that explains that huh?
QUOTE=EvilTOJ;13166913][soapbox]I loathe drug tests. They’re completely invasive and they treat people as guilty of being a junkie until proven innocent. All they find are pot smokers and junkies that are high so much you can tell just by looking at them. It doesn’t check for alcoholism which is more common, but legal.[/soapbox]
Some places are super paranoid about doing drug tests thinking they’re weeding out The Evil, and some are just going through the motions because it’s company policy but they really don’t give a shit. You went to one that was the latter. The most invasive one I had was where after showing ID, I had to take off all outer-wear. I’d had my 2 year old with me and he had to wait just outside the door. All of the tests I’ve taken have a temp gauge on the cup.
[/QUOTE]
See, I’ve never had one be invasive. No one has ever watched me. They usually just make me present an ID and turn all pockets inside out.
Most places test everyone 'cause sooner or later you’re going to get complaints about bias if you don’t. It’s easier in the long run to test everyone.
You can’t test for alcohol because it’s legal. You’re not able to see if a person is an alcoholic just if he/she uses alcohol. But it’s legal to do so, so what’s the point.
I will tell you at that factory I mentioned the foreman did test quite a few temp workers with breathalyzers for alcohol use. Some of the workers reeked of alcholol and if they failed they were sent home and not used. So the ones who showed up under the influence wrere getting weeded out too
